Fighting close to home is a lot more challenging than it looks, Brazilian Demian Maia now knows.

The UFC welterweight said familiar surroundings prompted him to relax at a time when he needed to hurry in his previous fight against Jake Shields, which took place in his hometown of Sao Paulo at UFC Fight Night 29. Two of three judges ruled he hadn’t done enough to secure victory at the October 2013 event.

“At one point in the last round, I thought I was winning, because in my mind, I was like, ‘I put him down four times; he put me down once,'” Maia told MMAjunkie Radio. “I was able to land one good strike, and he fell to his back twice.

“I thought I was winning, so the last round, I was more defensive. That was very frustrating for me. I made a mistake. It was a split decision; one judge gave it to me, but the last round, the other two gave it to him. So it’s hard, and plus, people don’t say it, but Jake is a pretty tough opponent. He knows how to play with the rules.”

Now four months after his first setback at 170 pounds following a mostly successful run at middleweight, Maia (18-5 MMA, 12-5 UFC) flies to Las Vegas to meet Rory MacDonald (15-2 MMA, 6-2 UFC) on the pay-per-view main card of UFC 170, which takes place Saturday at Mandalay Bay Events Center.

While Maia has several times fought in Sin City, the place is enough of a change to put him in the right mindset.

“After I started fighting there, I started reading a lot of books about Las Vegas, and I watch a lot of movies,” he said. “When I’m there, I feel the history. I like to go to the old casinos and remember what I read in the books.”

The story of UFC 170’s fight card has changed in the week leading up to the fight, and that briefly put Maia on unfamiliar ground. This past week, the UFC announced that co-headliner Rashad Evans had been forced to withdraw from a fight with Daniel Cormier due to a knee injury, which put him and MacDonald in the coveted spot. Then the promotion found a replacement opponent, Patrick Cummins, and the offer was rescinded.

Thankfully, Maia said, there isn’t much time to worry about his status. A win over MacDonald would almost instantly bring new life to his welterweight career and put him in line for better opponents.

“It’s a little bit of a distraction, but at this point, it’s so close that it doesn’t really matter,” Maia said. “I was very happy to be co-main. It’s very important for me to be co-main. But after [Cormier] got his fight, it was like, oh, I’m not going to be co-main any more.

“But that’s a very small thing. The most important is to do my best and win the fight.”

To do that, Maia has concocted a plan that will keep him from taking his foot off the gas in the later rounds, as he expects he’ll encounter against MacDonald.

The 24-year-old Canadian has been to the scorecards in his past three fights as he tussled with top-tier talent such as B.J. Penn, Jake Ellenberger and, most recently, Robbie Lawler, to whom he lost via split decision.

Prior to his setback against Shields, Maia found great success by returning to his grappling roots against Jon Fitch, moving into back control and preventing the onetime title challenger from mounting any offense.

He plans to do the same against MacDonald, but in a measured way.

“I hope [I’ll be able to take him down], but I know he’s strong, and he’s tall,” Maia said. “It’s pretty much who spends more energy. The person who spends more energy and gets tired will have a problem.”

MMAjunkie Radio broadcasts Monday-Friday at noon ET (9 a.m. PT) live from Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino’s Race & Sports Book. The show is hosted by “Gorgeous” George Garcia, MMAjunkie lead staff reporter John Morgan and producer Brian “Goze” Garcia. For more information or to download past episodes, go to www.mmajunkie.com/radio.

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